Three

The trip from Garm to Neu Schweitz was relatively uneventful. Like all such affairs since the voyage of the Mayflower, it was long, uncomfortable and tedious. The ship spent the first half of the trip accelerating to reach a top speed of around eighty percent the speed of light, before turning the engines in the opposite direction and decelerating for the second half of the trip. While the humans aboard were not in their cyro-sleep chambers, the acceleration and deceleration thrust-levels were muted to about 1.5 gees so people could move about without too much discomfort. When the humans were safely frozen in their chambers, however, the ship ran the engines at full-throttle and exerted maximum thrust continuously.

Even with cyro-sleeping and the relativistic effects of time dilation due to travel at a velocities nearing lightspeed, the journey took the better part of a year off their lives. Each time they awakened, Sarah searched Bili’s face and body carefully, despite his protests and rolling eyes.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Bili said. She always made a tremendous fuss every time they went to sleep or woke up. Bili thought it was embarrassing to have a mother who worried so much about him.

“Just hold still for one second.”

“Why do you have to do this every time?”

“Young people don’t always do well with interstellar travel. You’re still growing. I’m just making sure that things are okay.”

“Is that a tear? Are you crying, Mom? I can’t believe it.”

Sarah sniffled. She forced a smile. “I think you’ve grown. You must be a centimeter taller, and I missed it.”

Bili rolled his eyes again. “Okay, are you done? I’m fine. Let me go feed Fryx. He hasn’t had live food for at least a month.”

“Okay. But give me one more minute,” said Sarah.

Bili suspected she wanted to blow her nose. He was already looking toward the corridor, however. He wanted to run around and do something. He wanted to move, to get strong again. He felt like he’d overslept, like he’d dreamed strange things that were best forgotten. If he exercised hard, he figured he would be stronger than the other boys when he got to Neu Schweitz and was shoved into some new school. He would have muscles hardened by exercise in 1.5 gee, while they would be weaklings. Neu Schweitz’s gravity was only 85% of standard.

It took a second for him to realize his mother was still going on about something. He tuned her back in.

“—and don’t let that thing touch you with any of its spines. It’s not a pet, Bili.”

“I know, I know. I’m not an idiot. Fryx is smarter than any fish.”

Before she could scold or cry over him anymore, he ran out into the corridor. Running was a little harder in 1.5 gee, like running in huge, wet shoes—while wearing a backpack full of bricks. But he forced his legs to pump and not just walk, but run. He grinned as he did it. The new kid in school was going to be a legend.

Fryx was his first stop, just as he always was. Bili breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the creature, shivering and floating in its tank. Fryx was something called a Tulk, an intelligent alien life form that lived inside of other creatures. Looking like a spiny glob of pink-gray jelly, it was hard to tell how happy Fryx was. Bili suspected he didn’t like the fish tank, but it kept him alive. No one felt like letting Fryx crawl inside their skulls, so there weren’t many options.

Bili tapped the glass. At first, when he had done that, Fryx had shrunken up into a ball and stuck out his spines in every direction. No doubt he had squirted his neurotoxins to the tip of every spine, just in case someone were about to touch him. But now that Fryx had become used to Bili’s tapped greeting, he floated upward to the surface.

“Greedy for a fresh fish, aren’t you, boy?” asked Bili, smiling. Despite what he had told his mother, he did think of Fryx as an exotic pet. He shook a live, silvery wriggle-fish into the tank’s upper portal and let the spring-loaded hinge snap back down.

Fryx didn’t eat the fish the way a shark might. Instead, he floated close and when the fish came to investigate, he stung it with his spines. The fish spasmed and shook. It lost control of its muscles and floated gently toward the surface. Fryx, cautious as always, snuck up on the paralyzed creature and enveloped it. After a day or two, Bili knew from experience, there would be nothing left but a set of gray-white bones resting on the colorful gravel at the bottom of the tank.

Droad had put Fryx into a tank of saline to keep him alive for the trip. They had decided not to try to freeze Fryx. No one knew if they could bring him back to life if they did. Of course, the heavy gees of acceleration might have killed him too, but everyone figured that if he just floated in the tank he would be protected from a lot of the pressure and hopefully would survive.

Bili had an open mind when it came to aliens. He felt sorry for Fryx, even though he was disgusting and had caused that Skald guy, Garth, to go crazy. Bili thought was it rather mean of Droad to bring Fryx along, especially since no one knew if he could even survive through the gee forces. But Droad was the ex-governor and that meant he did pretty much what he wanted on Garm. Droad had said he wanted the labs back at Neu Schweitz to have a look at old Fryx. Hopefully, they wouldn’t cut him up with scalpels. All the adults had assured Bili that wouldn’t happen—but sometimes adults lied, especially to kids.

Bili stared at Fryx, who was enjoying his small, silvery fish. He wondered if Fryx could hear his thoughts or even see what was around him. He didn’t seem to have any eyes.

“Poor slimy bastard,” he muttered. He put his chin on the back of his folded hands and stared into the tank.

#

Fryx, despite all of humanity’s myths surrounding his species, was not a true telepath. When he had been inside a host creature for long enough to learn the language of its nervous system, he could read the alien thoughts that traveled through the host’s mind. But this was merely the effects of two nervous systems being conjoined. It was no stranger than the cerebellum communicating with the frontal lobes. It was through nerve impulses that he had communicated with Garth, his skald. They had talked in much the same manner that one part of a human’s mind might verbalize and speak to the rest of it, and thus carry on an internal conversation.

But, unless his spines were embedded into a host nervous system, he had a great deal of difficulty communicating in any useful fashion. To talk to others of his own kind, both creatures were usually immersed in a familiar host. By touching, these hosts could send electrical impulses, signals and nervous twitches, which could be felt by the other Tulk. Through this sort of Morse code methodology, two of his species could converse while they both rode host creatures.

When Bili came to the tank for the first time after a long, painful bout of acceleration, Fryx could not help but be cheered. He was used to long periods of self-introspection, but only while securely ensconced in a warm-blooded host’s skull. To be out of that element, to be exposed and imprisoned—oh, how the mighty Fryx had fallen! Now, he was no longer a proud rider, but an ignoble slave at the mercy of any grotesque creature who happened by. It was enough to make one contemplate self-termination, if such a thought could have been seriously considered by one of his kind.

But Fryx, despite his despondency, had plans of his own. And those thoughts did not include suicide. His species had always been weak by any physical measure. What they lacked in prowess, however, they made up for in natural cunning and patience.

And so Fryx ate his wriggle-fish, floated in his tank, and sensed what he could of the outside world. He had even come to understand the meaning of the vibrations spoken by the bipeds as the sonic waves touched the glass and were transmitted to his fantastically sensitive spines via the saline he floated in.

Each time Bili’s hand came and opened the tank’s lid, Fryx shivered with excitement. Here was the nearness of host. He could feel the heat of that hand, even through the bubbling waters.

But he did not make any kind of move to touch that small, soft hand. Instead, he digested his fish. And he plotted.